Swampfest at Quick and Dirty

Quick and Dirty this month, live at the Artesian but also streaming, featured four talks on Swampfest. Neil Adams gave a fairly straight forward history of the festival woven together with his own personal history of arts involvement which stood as a sort of manifesto for community engagement. Sean Dunham followed suit, adding only minor details. His photos of himself in his own campy costumes were funny but he seemed to be compelled to repeatedly pull back the curtain of the Swampfest mythology and reveal who is within costumes, who made up the tall tales, and how it is all fake. It actually made me feel very unengaged with the whole thing. Fortunately musical performer Emma New energized the room with her rapid ramble about her musical career for which no one has been more surprised than herself. TAB took the stage, along with interpreter Neil, and had the audience rolling in the aisles. Would have been better if the people viewing from home had attended and given the event some presence. We are all getting tired of talking to the aether.